This case comes on appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. At trial, the plaintiff-appellee Bangor Punta Operations, Inc. submitted to the jury its claims that the defendant-appellant, Universal Marine Company, Inc., had breached plaintiff's common law copyright on certain trawler designs and specifications, had unlawfully appropriated these trade secrets of the plaintiff, and had by virtue of false advertising violated section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 1125(a). The jury verdict awarded the plaintiff the sum of $200,000.00 as damages and the judgment of the District Court included the permanent injunctive relief sought by the plaintiff.

Appellant seeks to reverse the judgment of the District Court contending that there was no personal jurisdiction over the alien corporate defendant.

Pursuant to Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, process was served under the Florida long-arm statute. F.S.A. § 48.193 (Supp.1973). This statute reads in pertinent part as follows:

(1) Any person, whether or not a citizen or resident of this state, who personally or through an agent does any of the acts enumerated in this subsection thereby submits that person and, if he is a natural person, his personal representative to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state for any cause of action arising from the doing of any of the following:

(b) Commits a tortious act within this state.

Presently at issue is whether or not the alien defendant, Universal Marine, committed a tortious act within the state of Florida subjecting it to the jurisdiction of the District Court.

The complaint alleged and it was proven at trial that the defendant sent into Florida an advertisement containing in fact a photograph of the plaintiff's trawler but represented to be the photograph of the defendant's trawler. Also alleged and proven was the fact that the defendant sent yachts, built in violation of the plaintiff's property rights, into Florida for the purpose of being sold to potential buyers.

The question then becomes whether these acts constituted "tortious acts" within the meaning of the Florida long-arm statute.

The plaintiff contends that the misappropriation of its advertising material by the defendant results in the violation of § 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 1125(a).1 We agree. It has been frequently held that such misappropriation of advertising material constitutes a federal tort of unfair competition in violation of § 43(a) of the Lanham Act.2 Likewise, it has often been held that the unauthorized use of a trade secret or the breach of a common law copyright subjects the wrongdoer to liability in tort.3 Thus, we think it is clear that the acts of the defendant were tortious.

Next it must be determined whether the Florida long-arm statute was intended to reach these acts; i. e. were the tortious acts committed within the State of Florida.

In the recent case of Rebozo v. Washington Post Company, 515 F.2d 1208 (5th Cir. 1975), this Court was called upon to construe the statute at issue. The Court held that the Florida statute was not limited to a situation where an act in Florida caused an injury in Florida but that the Florida statute also reached the situation where a foreign tortious act caused injury in Florida. And in so construing the "tortious act" provision of F.S.A. § 48.193 (Supp.1973), this Court in Rebozo also noted the similarity between the far reaching Illinois long-arm statute and the statute at issue. Further noting favorable citations of Illinois authorities by the Florida courts, we held that, like the Illinois statute, the Florida statute "was designed to exploit the limits of jurisdictional due process articulated in International Shoe Co. v. State of Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S. Ct. 154, 90 L. Ed. 95 (1945)." 515 F.2d at 1212.

In this case, the importation of the cheaper and inferior boats, built by the unauthorized use of the plaintiff's design specifications and plans yet costing approximately $20,000.00 less per vessel, caused the plaintiff's business to be damaged in terms of lost sales, and damage to reputation, as the plaintiff alleged and the jury undoubtedly concluded. Since injury as a consequence of the defendant's acts occurred within the State of Florida, we are not called upon and do not decide the precise locality of the tortious acts giving rise to the injurious consequences which occurred.

Having concluded that the Florida statute authorizes the assertion of personal jurisdiction in this case, we are next called upon to determine whether the exercise of jurisdiction in this case is consistent with due process of law.

The standard as articulated in the landmark case of International Shoe of Washington, supra, calls for the determination of whether or not the defendant has "minimum contacts with (the forum) such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.' " As International Shoe indicated and subsequent cases have held, a single tortious act can support in personam jurisdiction, consistent with the Constitution, subject to the limitation that "there (must) be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws." Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253, 78 S. Ct. 1228, 1240, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1283 (1958).4 In the case at bar, an official of the defendant intended to and did send or cause to be sent a false advertisement and infringing products into Florida and by so doing clearly satisfied the above standards.5

We thus hold that the District Court properly had in personam jurisdiction over the foreign corporate defendant in this case based on the Florida long-arm statute. FSA § 48.193(1)(b) (Supp.1973). We consider it unnecessary to determine as did the trial judge whether the presence of a permissive counterclaim alleging violations of the anti-trust laws results in the waiver of the defense of lack of jurisdiction over the person.6

We have carefully considered the defendant's remaining enumerations of error and find these to lack merit. We answer the defendant's contention that the jury verdict was speculative as follows: . . . "the jury may make a just and reasonable estimate of the damages based on relevant data, and render its verdict accordingly. In such circumstances juries are allowed to act on probable and inferential as well as (upon) direct and positive proof." Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U.S. 251, 66 S. Ct. 574, 90 L. Ed. 652 (1946). In ABC-Paramount Records, Inc. v. Topps Record Distributing Co., 374 F.2d 455 (1975) this Court quoted with approval the Restatement of Torts § 912 Comment (d), (1939).

Although in such cases, the burden is on the injured person to prove with a fair degree of certainty that the business or transaction was or could have been profitable, it is not fatal to the recovery of substantial damages that he is unable to prove with definiteness the amount of profits he would have made or the amount of harm which the defendant has caused. It is only essential that he present such evidence as might reasonably be expected to be available under the circumstances (emphasis supplied by the Court in ABC-Paramount, supra ).

(i)n a case such as this, where the wrong is of such a nature as to preclude exact ascertainment of the amount of damages, plaintiff may recover upon a showing of the extent of the damages as a matter of just and reasonable inference, although the result may be only an approximation. Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 563, 51 S. Ct. 248, at 250, 75 L. Ed. 544 (1931). The wrongdoer may not complain of inexactness where his actions preclude precise computation of the extent of the injury. Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U.S. 359, 379, 47 S. Ct. 400, 71 L. Ed. 684 (1927). Kestenbaum v. Falstaff Brewing Corporation, 514 F.2d 690, 698 (5th Cir. 1975).

AFFIRMED.